Sensex drops 63pts; HLL, ITC decline

The Sensex opened with a positive gap of 20 points at 12,257, and moved up to a high of 12,274 in morning deals. Selling in noon deals saw the index drop to a low of 12,145 - an intra-day swing of 129 points. The Sensex finally closed with a loss of 63 points at 12,174.

All the sectoral indices, barring BSE Metal and BSE Oil & Gas Indices, declined marginally today. While the BSE Metal Index was up 0.24% (19 points) to 8233, the BSE Oil & Gas Index was up 0.26% (15 points) to 5800. The BSE FMCG Index declined over 1% (28 points) to 2034.

Declines outnumbered advances - out of 2,584 scrips traded, 1,510 declined, 998 advanced and 76 were unchanged today.

Index Gainers & Losers

Grasim dropped nearly 2% (Rs 50) to Rs 2,469.

While ITC slipped 1.8% (Rs 3) to Rs 184, HLL was also down 1.8% (Rs 4) to Rs 253.

Infosys declined Rs 13 to Rs 1,817. Wipro, Satyam and TCS also declined today.

Bajaj Auto was down 1.8% (Rs 52) to Rs 2,866. NTPC, L&T, Reliance Communications and ACC also declined.

Tata Steel advanced over 2% (Rs 11) to Rs 508. Tata Motors was up 1.3% (Rs 11) at Rs 846. While Reliance gained Rs 8 to Rs 1,164, BHEL was up Rs 13 at Rs 2,326.

Bharti, Hero Honda, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Ranbaxy also finished with gains today.

Top Volumes & Trades

It was a day dominated by the newly-listed scrips. Debutant Atlanta topped the volume chart with trades of over 1.12 crore shares followed by Deep Industries (97 lakh shares) and KEW Industries (69 lakh shares).

Atlanta also topped the turnover chart with trades of nearly Rs 222 crore followed by Reliance (Rs 207 crore), Tulip (Rs 150 crore) and Tata Steel (Rs 103 crore).